Life imitates art, as Berkshire countryside inspiring Watership Down is threatened by developing zealots

At the beginning of Watership Down, the best-selling adventure story by Richard Adams, developers destroy a rabbit warren in Sandleford Park near Newbury.

The story is fiction, but is faithful to the geography of the Berkshire countryside. Fiction recently became a step closer to fact when West Berkshire council approved a proposal to build houses over the exact site of this warren. An independent inspector has yet to approve the plan, and it may be overturned. But any rabbits living there would do well to start planning their escape.

This development is driven by a simple business proposition. Locally, an acre of productive farmland can be purchased for about £7000. Working a farm in West Berkshire turns a decent profit, and is a perfectly good business proposition. But land speculators bank on far richer rewards. If they can get planning permission to turn this acre into residential land, its value will shoot up to over £700,000.

Watership Down: The 1978 film was based on the novel by Richard Adams,
who is also campaigning against the development of the land that inspired him

To bring about this increase, a planning inspector has to sign a piece of paper. In the case of Sandleford Park, about 100 acres are scheduled for development, so if the inspector signs on the dotted line the landowners will make a profit in the region of £70 million. The word for this dramatic price increase is “value uplift”.

The profits from this business are so attractive that land speculation in the UK is now a globalised business. From Russian gangsters, African dictators and tax dodging Greeks, hot money is flooding onto the UK property market, as overseas speculators seek a safe haven for their fortunes; so much so that over half of office property in the City of London is owned abroad.

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Having prospered from corruption and lawlessness in their own countries, but now rich and fearful for their security, they buy property in the UK. To avoid UK taxes on the profits they make, they vest their land ownership in tax haven based “shell” companies. Our rule of law and impartial system of justice protects their land against trespass and arbitrary confiscation. However the relationship is entirely parasitical: these speculators benefit from the protection of British law, but contribute not a penny in taxes towards the costs of maintaining such excellence.

The profit from building houses is different from the profit from land speculation, and is a legitimate reward for business and enterprise. This goes to builders and developers. Having banked the value uplift, the speculator sells out to a developer who will himself turn a very good profit, but will in the process produce new homes and create employment. By contrast, the land speculator makes hugely inflated profits, and does nothing beyond influencing the right people for his own ends.

Sandleford Common in West Berkshire: The proposed site for development of 2,000 houses

The value of fields (called greenfield sites in the trade) close to towns rises by a factor of a hundred or more when planning permission is given to build on it. This value uplift happens once. An already built up (“brownfield”) industrial estate may be entirely suitable for new housing, but the owners have far weaker reason to push for the planning changes that would be needed to achieve this.

Taking Newbury as an example, there is a large, old and underused industrial estate near the town centre, which could go a long way to accommodating the needed houses. There has been far less push from its owners to make the necessary planning changes, and it is not included in the current housing strategy.

Intentions: The profit from building houses is different from the profit from land speculation

In 2010 West Berkshire Council’s own assessment showed that Sandleford Park, which is distant from the town centre, was not an environmentally suitable site and brownfield sites would be more suitable. The promoters of the Sandleford site mounted a counter offensive. In a written reply, West Berkshire council revealed that the promoters met nine times with its professional planning officers over the past two years.

By early 2011 the promoters of the Sandleford development had found their answer: a new criterion was introduced and the assessment revised so it would treat large greenfield developments as per se more sustainable than brownfield sites. The justification was that such “sites would be of a scale where they are able to implement sustainable [construction] schemes”. On 14 February, the council voted for what one Libdem opposition councillor described as the “Valentine’s day massacre of Sandleford”. This sorry episode is a text book example of how the enormous profit to be made from greenfield developments allows landowners to distort the planning process.

Land speculators, increasingly foreign but some still home grown, are making huge tax free fortunes from the violation of our countryside. To satisfy their greed, English countryside that brings joy and inspiration is being destroyed forever. Unless and until steps are taken to remove the distortions that favour greenfield developments over the use of brownfield alternatives, it’s not just the rabbits in Sandleford Warren who will need to plan their escape.

Dr David Cooper is treasurer of the SayNoToSandleford Campaign, which opposes the development of Sandleford Park, Newbury